Yesterday was the final day of the epic dual-language Sprint in Accra, Ghana. The policy paper written for civil society about how to engage the private sector in climate change adaptation initiatives was headed by IBIS Ghana, ABANTU for Development, West African Civil Society Forum and SOS Sahel.

The paper is rich with case studies of business opportunities which yield profit and positive effects for communities and the environment. Examples range from a micro-insurance scheme to protect small-scale farmers in Burkina Faso against drastic weather to innovative crop storage bags which improve food security across countries in West Africa. The paper ends with a set of recommendations for civil society and the public sector to create a conducive environment for, and guide the private sector, into funding projects which seek to adapt to the changing climate and mitigate its harmful effects. We hope the paper will prove useful to the field!

Yesterday we started our first ever Book Sprint in two languages. Oxfam Ibis has gathered a group of half English-speaking and half French-speaking participants to write a policy brief about financing climate adaptation through the engagement of the private sector. Climate change adaptation refers to the efforts to reduce or minimize the harmful effects of the future climate and to make use of the opportunities which arise. This is part of Ibis’ two-year project on West African Dialogue of Private Climate Financing, aiming to build the capacity and strategies of civil society to engage the private sector in climate change adaptation efforts. The participants from across West Africa have come together to share their experiences of effective climate adaptation efforts and provide a set of recommendations as a tool for civil society to use in dialogue with the private sector.

The Book Sprint process itself is very challenging since traditionally we rely so heavily on quick and lively exchange between contributors, rapid production and reiteration of content, and equal weight of all voices. For this Sprint we have had to adapt our strategies, abandoning the simultaneous translation by the second day. We are running two parallel processes with the two language groups and finding moments to come back together and merge the two groups’ outputs. Luckily we have a few bilingual people who are acting as our bridges.

In review, 2016 was a year full of interesting Book Sprints and some changes to the management of Book Sprints Ltd.

Founder Adam Hyde is now the director of the board and appointed Barbara Rühling as CEO and Katerina Michailidi as COO of the company. The new management is based in Berlin, Germany. Our amazing team is based all around the world between New Zealand, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, USA, and Nicaragua.

The full team includes:

Adam Hyde (NZ) – Founder and director

Barbara Rühling (GER) – CEO

Katerina Michailidi (GR) – COO

Mark Brokering (USA) – Client Liaison

Juan Gutierrez (NIC) – Developer

Raewyn Whyte (NZ) – Textual Clean Up

Julien Taquet (FR) – HTML Book Production

Henrik van Leeuwen (NL) – Illustrations

Faith Bosworth (ZA) – Facilitator

Laia Ros (AND) – Facilitator

Thank you all and a happy 2017 to everyone!

Book Sprints on four continents in 2016

2016 saw Book Sprints taking place on four continents. From east to west, we facilitated Book Sprints in Tokyo, Japan – Bern, Switzerland – Bad Honnef, Germany – Marrakesh, Morocco – several in Maryland, USA – Salt Lake City, Utah – and several in San Jose, California.

Below is a list of the Book Sprints we facilitated this year.

Change Maker Education

Ashoka Changemakers Book Sprint in Utah, January 2016

This Book Sprint, hosted by Ashoka, captured the wisdom of 12 highly inspired and passionate “ChangeMaker” educators. The book Changemakers: Educating with Purpose is a meaningful and usable guide for other educators wanting to implement similar practices in their schools. The book is available on Amazon: http://a.co/hq6jrEB

Power Purchase Agreements in Africa

Book Sprint on Understanding Power Project Financing in Marrakesh, February 2016

The second USAID Book Sprint produced Understanding Power Project Financing, a handbook that focuses on the financing challenges of power projects in Africa. It was later translated into French. Both English and French versions can be found here: http://cldp.doc.gov/programs/cldp-in-action/details/1603

F5 AFM Operations Guide

Book Sprint with F5 in San Jose, March 2016

In March, the fourth Book Sprint with F5 took place in San Jose. Eleven F5 Engineers, Technical Training Developers, Security Solution Architects and Sales Engineers worked together to write the F5 BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM) Operations Guide. You can download the guide here: https://devcentral.f5.com/articles/the-big-ip-afm-operations-guide-20511

GIZ Treasure Hunt

Book Sprint with GIZ in Bad Honnef, May 2016

At the end of May, a group of ten contributors wrote the book Treasure Hunt – How Good Financial Governance can support resource-endowed countries in achieving the SDGs. GIZ (Germany’s agency for international development cooperation) has been doing extensive work on improving governance in the extractive sector, and used the Book Sprint to document and evaluate these strategies.

Tokyo Development Learning Center Operations Manual

Tokyo Development Learning Center Book Sprint in Tokyo, August 216

The Tokyo Development Learning Center came back for a second Book Sprint. In 4 days, they developed an operations manual for a new partnership program with the Government of Japan.

Guide for Managing and Mitigating Conflict Risks in Mining Contracts

Book Sprint with the World Bank in Maryland, November 2016

Also in November, the World Bank invited eleven experts of open contracting and mining contracts to Kent Island in Maryland. In three and a half days they designed a guide to prevent, mitigate and manage conflict risks through the mining contracting process.

Guide for the development of electoral codes of conduct

International IDEA and HDS Book Sprint in Bern, December 2016

At the initiative of the Human Security Department of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (HDS) and International IDEA, six participants came together in Bern in December. Collaboratively they wrote a book to guide domestic ‘honest brokers’ working in transitional contexts (facilitators such as party leaders, EMBs, peacebuilding experts, democracy assistance practitioners, etc.). The book draws on experiences from successful dialogues between political parties for the development of codes of conduct that contribute to the holding of peaceful elections.

I did not think it was possible to write a book in five days. I enjoyed working on something and having something to show for it in such a small amount of time… We have an end product that we can be proud of. – Vibhuti Jain, USAID

It was a journey from the unkown to the known. We started of with barely nothing, just a couple of ideas, but as the week went by and after lots of discussions and lots of thinking it came to a result that is very good, the end result is actually something to be very proud of. – Lucy Chege, Development Bank of Southern Africa

The Book Sprint for International IDEA and HDS finished up on Friday afternoon. During five days, six participants from IDEA, HSD, NIMD and the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue pooled their expertise to build a practical tool for the development of codes of conduct aiming at celebrating elections in the best conditions.

Participants and the running facilitator

The Book intends to guide domestic ‘honest brokers’ working in transitional contexts (facilitators such as party leaders, EMBs, peacebuilding experts, democracy assistance practitioners, etc.) and provides lessons learned, essential steps and considerations drawn from successful dialogues between political parties for the development of codes of conduct that contribute to the holding of peaceful elections.

The guide will illustrate each step with comparative examples allowing its users to make informed strategic decisions both in relation to process and content. It will now go through a final review by IDEA’s publication team and we look forward to seeing its release!

Today it’s our second day of a new Book Sprint in the charming city of Bern, the capital of Switzerland.

The book is an initiative led by the Human Security Department of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (HDS) and International IDEA.

City of Bern

Taking as a starting point that political dialogue is a major conflict-prevention mechanism, the group is writing a practical guide on how to facilitate dialogue initiatives in the context of electoral processes in transition or conflict countries (codes of conduct).

Participants will bring their hands-on facilitation experiences to illustrate with practical examples the different steps and essential considerations.

This week, the World Bank invited eleven experts of open contracting and mining contracts as well as a Book Sprints facilitator to Kent Island in Maryland. In three and a half days they set out to collaboratively design a tool to prevent, mitigate and manage conflict risks through the mining contracting process.

There have been various Book Sprints with the World Bank since the Open Contracting Book Sprint more than three years ago, and at least three of them have taken place in Kent Manor, this pretty place.

Book Sprint in Kent Manor

Highly concentrated and only very slightly distracted by the elections playing out in nearby Washington DC, the group is developing a guiding tool to offer good principles to government officials and the private sector in the immensely complex mining contract process.

The latest Book Sprint, now taking place in Maryland brings together a group of experts organised by the US Energy Association and the Department of Energy to create a handbook for African governments wanting to set up natural gas development projects. The handbook will be a reference document that helps government officials better understand the options, and the stakeholder shared aims, for developing LNG projects.

This week, the Tokyo Development Learning Center (TDLC) invited us to facilitate their second Book Sprint. A year ago we facilitated a Book Sprint for the TDLC operations manual, and now a new partnership program with the Government of Japan starting next month requires another operations manual.

The TDLC training room has fancy spy glass windows

Whereas last year’s Book Sprint drew on ten years of experience of the TDLC staff and partners, this manual defines an entirely new program. The resulting document may not need to be long, but each step in the process is thoroughly mapped out and carefully worded to lay the groundwork for the next four years. To design a lean and efficient process that takes the needs of all partners involved into account, and to do so quickly, the TDLC invited eight experts from Tokyo, Washington D.C. and Paris and one facilitator from Book Sprints.